FCC to declare AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal under existing law
arstechnica.com
Robocalls with AI voices to be regulated under Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the agency says. I'm pretty sure this puts us on the timeline where we eventually get incredible, futuristic tech, but computers and robots still sound mechanical and fake.
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How does this get enforced though? They don't even enforce their no call list or cut down on junk robo calls as it is.
Don't undersell the FCC's rules around robocalling. No, we're still getting robocalls out the ass, but when it comes from US locations companies get their asses handed to them. The FCC is also the entity that's pushing the telcos to Make it possible to stop it from overseas sources. The new laws that went in place this year f***** up my twilio automation that was sending me SMS messages on server failures. All of a sudden I have a bunch of paperwork to fill out and a waiting list to be able to send an SMS via API.
If the FCC wasn't impeding robocalls as much as it is phones would be useless by now.
Submit any indiscernible objects?
Man some of these are funny, bold and ironic
`` The FCC described the other 12 companies' attached "robocall mitigation plans" as follows:
Humbolt VoIP: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification was a .PNG file depicting an indiscernible object." National Cloud Communications: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification was a document titled 'Windows Printer Test Page' that was unrelated to robocall mitigation." Route 66 Broadband: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification consisted of a signed declaration by the Company's CEO presented without additional content or context." Tech Bizz Solutions: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification contained a letter, unrelated to robocall mitigation, from Harvard Business Services, Inc." 2054235 Alberta: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification contained only the company's business address." Evernex: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification was a .PNG file that depicted the filer's 'Taxpayer Profile' on a Pakistani government website." My Taxi Ride: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification was a copy of an FCC public notice titled 'FCC Facilitates Review of Restoring Internet Freedom Record.'" (Restoring Internet Freedom was the title of the FCC's 2017 net neutrality repeal.) Nervill: The "attachment provided was a signature page on company letterhead with no substantive content or context." SIA Tet: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification was a letter that stated: 'Unfortunately, we do not have such a documents.'" Textodog: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification was a .PNG file that depicted a corporate icon." USA-Connect.net: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification contained only a signature." Viettel Business Solutions: "The robocall mitigation plan attached to its certification was a promotional document titled 'Viettel Solutions: Making Smart Cities Vision a Reality.'"
``
Lmao what on earth is that
Not the worst thing someone has ever stuck on a photocopier.
For the past 2 weeks I have been getting calls from a company claiming to register companies for voice search optimization. I've repeatedly told them to stop calling me, to which they respond that the calls won't relent until I sign up with their service. I've been threatened, mocked, and just straight hung up on, so now I enjoy just waisting as much of their time as possible. I filed a complaint last week, so I'm just logging all their calls to increase the inevitable fine (they're US based, all of the agents are clearly American).
tell them you're interested, keep them on the line for as much time as possible, waste them every time. that becomes expensive for them at a point.
I feel like most of the decent filtering of these types of calls are happening at the carrier level at this point. At least in my experience. They've been getting better at filtering them out before your phone even rings...
But I'm not sure that's how it should be. This is why regulatory agencies exist in the first place. What's the point if there is zero enforcement?
I also had the same setup and the same result from the A2P bullshit. Switched to email and DeltaChat instead and will be happy when I finish it lol.
pagerduty has a free option that fit me.
For me that would be swapping out one rug pull for an inevitable other down the road, but thanks for the suggestion ♥️
I was more than willing to pay for them, they want five accounts though. Like give me some way to pay for you that actually makes sense I'm totally down for it.
Absolutely! Services that are provided for free with no (reasonable) way to pay for at a hobby level are a huge bugbear of mine.
Most robo calls are not illegal as long as you follow the rules the FTC laid down.
This would have ban AI generated voices, so regardless of the content of the robo call, if it used in AI voice it would be illegal.
If the origin of the call is outside the US it's much harder to prosecute the illegal calls
Not really? You don't allow companies who don't operate in the USA to have USA based numbers. And don't allow them to spoof numbers. This way people can actually block international calls if they don't want them and it's clear from the get-go that it's not Microsoft or your state representative calling you from India.
Not allowing spoofed numbers would be a great improvement that I wish our government (or it agencies) would do
That would do a lot to stop these kinds of calls
They could even allow "Aliased" numbers... eg, a company has 10 numbers, and all outgoing come from the "main" number... But that should be specifically registered and validated by phone carriers as a thing rather than just showing the spoofed CID that we get these days. that way if the number generates complaints, the government can simply look at the registered alias and punish the correct people.
That's a great idea
In practice it prevents any rando from using a spoofed number and still allows corporations to have their internal phone lines behind a layer of obscurity
But how stupid would you have to be to take a call from half way around the world and listen to their advice about the upcoming election? A phone call that claims to come from a local politician is a lot more believable if it comes from a local number.
They spoof numbers. It almost always is a number from my state or the area code, very rarely do I get calls from out of state and they are all already labeled "spam risk/telemarketer" when they come in.
Also thank you for writing this comment, I was going to say ios had no way to block unknown numbers, but I searched to double check myself and they finally do have that option! It may have been around for quite awhile, I hadn't checked for a long while.
They spoof local numbers
Exactly. Laws have no meaning if you don’t enforce them or enforce them selectively.